


not with a bang, but with a whisper

by forcynics



Series: holiday fic 2011 [11]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6135487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcynics/pseuds/forcynics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dagger slides into her chest easily, like she is anyone else, like this isn’t so utterly wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not with a bang, but with a whisper

_This isn’t_ — the dagger slides into her chest easily, like she is anyone else, like this isn’t so utterly wrong – _this isn’t how it was supposed to happen. This was never supposed to happen._

She makes a noise – or starts to – a gasp or a whimper or a cry that digs into his skin like claws, and he’s never seen her look so _accusing_ (never in a thousand years). He’s seen _this_ before, the way it happens, how the process goes, how the skin starts to grey, and the body shrinks in on itself, like it’s pulled taut, and the eyes slowly, slowly, slowly close last of all.

Tonight is different, though, watching the colour bleed out of his sister – bright, colourful Rebekah, who was never supposed to look like this, who was never supposed to end up like this, who was never supposed to damn herself and both of them, who was never, never, never supposed to fall in love with Stefan Salvatore – never supposed to fall in love with anyone. She’s fading in his arms – the staggered half-embrace by which he caught her – but he can still hear her in his head, telling him she chose Stefan, chose _wrong._

“There, there, Bekah,” he says softly, as if she can hear him too – who knows what voices are in her head now, if any; he has no idea what this is actually like, for all that he’s inflicted it on others. He thumbs her cheekbone lightly, traces over the veins that are shockingly prominent against her withered skin. “There, there,” he says again, firmer this time, lets the words shape his mouth into something harder.

If she was never supposed to choose so wrong, he was never supposed to do _this_. She’s ruined them both. Rebekah was never supposed to want anything more, Rebekah was never supposed to want to stop running, not when running was their _lives_ – and he was never supposed to drive a dagger through her chest, no matter how gently he caught her body when it started to curl towards the floor.)

He doesn’t quite recognize what he’s done, even with Rebekah still and grey. He doesn’t quite recognize himself, and she did this to him – after all, he certainly doesn’t recognize her either, not now, not like this. Her fault, his fault, it’s too tiresome to contemplate, easier to blame Bekah: she took the first wrong step, he only reacted.

They both broke their promises – broke the same promise, uttered a thousand years ago with their hands clasped tight and their brother who would break it too. You can’t promise anything when you live forever, he thinks. Everything will come to happen eventually.

(This is how he justifies, when he lays Rebekah down in a coffin that was never supposed to be hers.)


End file.
